


No Regrets

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:56:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first year at Harvard lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Regrets

There are things Astrid knows; in the first year of their circus act Olivia Dunham is held a little aloof; Olivia’s officially partnered with Charlie and the bulk of her time is spent at the bureau, working cases, Olivia checks in when time permits, or on the odd occasion she’ll take Peter with her; but for the most part it’s the three stooges who occupy the lab and Astrid gets to know the Bishops by dent of proximity.

“What’s my job entail?”

“Research assistant, you’re to aid Doctor Bishop in any capacity, report pertinent information to me.”

Astrid purses her lips, shrewd. “Am I a spy?” Olivia has a spotlight stare, it makes it difficult not to fidget, Astrid has no idea why she was selected from the pool of junior agents but she refuses to withdraw her question, she’s not sure if linguistics and computer science qualifies her for Walter Bishop.

“No,” Olivia decides. “I don’t think so.”

Astrid is Astro, Apex, Aspirin, Asterix, and the one time Walter called her Antoine, she threw a pencil at his head. When he’s absent-minded, Walter reverts to ‘young lady’ or _‘you’, _he snaps his fingers at her, rude; on one rainy afternoon he stared blankly until she prompted, “I’m here to help, remember?” By turns, the senior Bishop is both sweet and oddly vicious.__

 _Kieran’s Fall is fifteen meters, a clean sheet of water that tumbles into slipstream, the river runs azure, melt-water from the ice leaving it pristine. She toes her shoes off, digits curling against rock, and shrugs her shirt over her head without bothering to unbutton it. The height looks dizzying. She stands on the precipice, a slip of a girl in bra and undies, arms held wide. She’d like to say she dove into the water in a perfect arc, serene, but the truth is she dropped like a bomb, knees drawn up, shrieking the entire way. Astrid is twenty-two. She just graduated with honors and she’s not above celebrating her success with an act of insanity. She breaks surface shivering cold, delighted. ___

Astrid yelps, feet skidding in a cow-paddy. She slaps her palm against Gene’s flank, regaining her balance as the bovine startles, knocking into the stall. “Fils d’une chienne.” She looks up to find Peter watching, his grin turning wicked. Astrid feels her ears go pink. “¿Usted dice más de un languge?” She ventures, switching dialects. Peter doesn’t understand Latin - he has no interest in the past - but he’s fluent in as many languages as Astrid. In the first week when boredom reigns, they play games of one-upmanship; Farsi flows into French, Cantonese into Spanish, they stagger through Russian together because they only know the profanities. “Nothing comes for free,” Peter purrs. He teaches her poker on the condition she teach him numeric code, and Astrid sees the books he carries, peeking out from the end of his bag. “Peter was home-schooled until he was thirteen,” Walter says in lieu of nothing, searching for food in an air duct, his voice vague. “It seemed awfully important at the time.”

Peter quit high school at sixteen - a large chunk of his education’s self-taught – an odd collection of gaping potholes and self-reliance; quietly, Astrid decides she likes him. Walter drops down from his stool, triumphant, and swings a red vine at her forehead. “Look, I found food! It looks like an aorta, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Walter,” she says.

 

 _Astrid has tea with Ben and her parents the same night as her new detail. She’s nauseas with the thought of this is it – not a field agent or a promising analyst – Astrid’s career has been reduced to filling up deprivation tanks with salt water. Her brother keeps his head tilted, gaze set at the carpet, his blunt fingers tear at the napkin. Astrid learnt from childhood not to startle him. She speaks plainly; sarcasm or double entendres have no place in her parent’s home. She thought Ben would choose a career in computers, something devoid of nuances, but he loves the earth, soil, bones, he loves fossils; the tactile feel of the obvious. Aspergers’ taught Astrid the value of simplicity, to not confuse the issue with double meaning. She’s fierce with pride as he hugs her goodbye, ready to begin his career in archeology. ___

Astrid assists at the lab from Monday to Thursday, on Friday’s she returns to the office, filling out the weekly report that covers their expense account; the paperwork’s signed off by Agent Dunham before being sent upstairs to Broyles.

They meet for coffee at _Auld Lang _, a bureau pub half a block from the office. It’s an informal discussion where Astrid passes along her impressions and Agent Dunham listens, her eyes tracking across Astrid’s face. The senior agent is striking if a little distant, green eyes and a smattering of freckles, she speaks in a counter-beat cadence, half a strike too fast. It’s musical, so low that Astrid finds herself slipping forward on the edge of her seat, keen to hear every last note.__

 _Her grandmother taught her to cook, none of the recipes were written but committed to memory by act of repetition, Mae Farnsworth’s style of cooking was a slap of this and a dash of that, their table-bench an explosion of self-raising flour. Astrid was raised to the soundtrack of Edith Piaf, where the light streamed through the kitchen window in a syrupy hue. The memory remains gilded, tangibly sweet. ___

Three weeks later, Walter stabs her in the neck with a syringe. Astrid goes home, five o’clock sharp, every night for a month.

“I need you to stay,” Olivia says, her voice broken by long distance. Astrid can read the apology in her pause, in the static between sentences, she shifts her phone from one ear to another, watches Walter sternly. “Will you be alright?” Olivia prompts.

Astrid wonders if Olivia’s conscious of it, since Peter was tortured, she’s kept him so much closer. Walter shares a hotel room with his son, living quarters comparable to a shoe-box, in each other's company twenty-four hours a day. Astrid decides she can look after the senior Bishop while the two of them run surveillance but it will be on her own turf. She cooks Walter dinner as the older man natters on, he touches her belongings, smoothes his palm over embroidered cushions. She lays the blankets on the couch and coaxes him to sleep, by eleven, Walter’s systematically turned on every light in her house, his expression aimless, seeking; Astrid returns him to the couch. By two, he’s reciting molecular tables, voice strident, reaching every nook and cranny in her apartment; by four am, it’s obvious neither one of them is going to sleep. Astrid pulls out her knitting, sets Walter down opposite and makes him hold the yarn, his hands precisely one foot apart, strands of wool looped between his fingertips, his eyes remain hooded, head angled toward the clock.

The following morning, Astrid returns to the lab, her hair more frazzled than normal.

When she sees Peter, she’s momentarily arrested. The bruises on his face have faded but she wonders how much of the darkness in his eyes was injury, how much was unmitigated exhaustion. It’s not guilt, because Walter’s not Astrid's responsibility, but it’s empathy, she begins to stay longer, offers to look after Walter on lunch break, and if on the rare day she sees Peter sprawled on the grass across Harvard campus, dozing, she doesn’t deign to comment, in truth, it’s no longer a hardship. Peter brings in an IPod one week later, his mouth quirked, rueful, ‘for dire emergencies’ he says. It floats between her own desk and Peter’s; on the odd occasion they’ll share it, the ear-buds stretched between them, knees knocking together as Walter hollers out show-tunes in the background. The day she scrolls through the playlist and discovers Edith Piaf added, Astrid’s startled into immobility. The smile Peter gives her is small, without artifice; like his father Peter can be surprisingly sweet. She hits the play button, eyes closing at the first strands of music.

 _Non je ne regretted rien, _a woman purrs.__

The first year in the lab is exploding fruit; on occasion, it’s exploding corpses as well. It’s Peter and her standing in the background - a shared look thrown between them – unseen and laced with mirth. It’s Olivia, Friday coffee, and Walter’s infectious excitement. Her job description is forensic science, friend, mop up crew; helping to save the world, one emergency at a time.


End file.
